"Roswell, New Mexico": At Least the Gay Guys Kiss

The poster of the new tv series Roswell, New Mexico shows a man and a woman in a heterosexual embrace, and the promo shows four hetero lip-locks!

I'd be noping out of the room, but I heard that there was a gay male relationship, as rare as hen's teeth on tv, so I stuck it out, watching one episode and fast-forwarding through the rest, looking for gay romance.

The story involves three alien children who survived the spaceship crash at Roswell in 1947, were in stasis pods until 1997, and then emerged in the shape of human 7-year olds.  They had various traumatic experiences in high school (2004-2008), revealed in flashback:

1. Max (Nathan Parsons) killed a man who was attacking his sister.  The trio buried the body, and kept the awful secret.

2. Isobel (Lily Cowles) started a romance with Rosa, then for no apparent reason killed her and two other girls.  The trio made it it look like a car accident.

3. Michael (Michael Vlamis) started a romance with Alex (Tyler Blackburn), but Alex's homophobic father Jesse caught them together and attacked.  Jesse was not only homophobic but alienophobic, involved with a top-secret government alien-hunting project.

After high school the trio apparently just sat around for 10 years, waiting for the plot to start up again.

It starts when their high school classmate Liz Ortega (Jeanine Mason), a failed biochemist and Rosa's sister, returns to town.  She learns the truth about the aliens, and starts sniffing around about Rosa's death.

She starts dating Kyle (Michael Trevino), her high school boyfriend, who is investigating aliens on his own.

At that moment, Wyatt (Dylan McTee), whose sister died in the "crash" with Rosa, decides to start killing people, either in revenge or to keep them quiet about a secret of his own.

Oh, you're wondering about the three aliens:

1. Max, now the town deputy sheriff, starts dating his coworker Jenna.

2. Isobel is now "happily married" to Noah (Karam Oberoi), who unbeknownst to her, is also a survivor of the spaceship crash.  He lived for many years in Isobel's body (why she was dating Rosa -- it was all entirely heterosexual!).  Then he took over a male body (top photo).  Nice choice!

3. Michael, now a drifter, reunites with Alex, who discovers the truth and breaks up with him for his own protection.  Not dissuaded, Michael starts a relationship with Maria.  Then Alex returns and wants to be "friends."

Gulp.

 Well, maybe they will end up together in the next season.  If there is one.  The reviewers are panning the series for being derivative, convoluted, and silly, and for skimming over the interesting parallels:
Homophobia and alienophobia.
The government tracking down both spaceship aliens and undocumented aliens.

Beefcake: Not a lot.  Occasionally a guy will rip his shirt off.

Heterosexism:  Between two and four scenes of men and women kissing or having sex with each other per episode.  But at least Michael and Alex get a scene together in most episodes, too.

See also: Roswell, New Mexico: Soap Opera with Bi Characters and Out-and-Proud Aliens